Europe Chevron. Ireland Chevron. Dublin Chevron. This is part of Why I Moved , a recurring series about Americans building a life abroad. While Michael Sable had never given much thought to living in a different country, Ireland had always been at the back of his mind, thanks to his family history there.
So after an unexpected career change in , he decided to take a chance on Dublin. Does he ever contemplate moving back? So [living in Ireland] had been something that was just kind of in my head. I also had a very lucky situation: my grandparents emigrated from Ireland , meaning I was able to get Irish citizenship through descent. My dad had actually gotten it for me while I was growing up, so once I decided I wanted to move to Dublin, all I had to do was apply for a passport.
That was back in I figured, you know, I'll try it for three months and if I don't get a job I'll just move back and call it a really long vacation. But here I am, eight years later. But in reality, the company I was working for was bought out by a different company and moved their offices outside of DC, which meant that at the ripe old age of 24, I had a severance package that I could use to move somewhere.
I suddenly had this opportunity where all the piecesโcitizenship, finances, having family already thereโlined up. That was massive, even just in terms of having an Irish address while I was looking for a jobโemployers could see I was committed to living there. I even live with my second cousin now. The comedy scene in Dublin is really nice. Once, I was hanging out at the International Bar, which is the oldest running comedy club in Dublin, and mentioned I was a comedian.
Before I knew it, the runner had given me five minutes up on the stage. I actually run my own comedy show in Dublin now. The city also has a great food and bar scene. The people are just so incredibly friendly here, always happy to strike up a conversation and look out for each other. It feels a bit embarrassing when your first language is English. But after, say, three weeks I probably got the gist of it. Plus, I don't really look forward to the next four years politically, so as it currently stands, there's nothing really drawing me back to the US at the moment.
